Soviet Log 39
Cleansings are Cool We picked things up deep in the Patriarch's Prison having just see Baron Brightmeer for the first time since we defeated Stalin last chapter. Poor Brightmeer looked very much the worse for wear after weeks of internment and interrogation. The prison Doctor had been working on him relentlessly since Vasiley's guards had dropped him in the prison. Brightmeer was clearly under the influence of drugs and maybe worse. We briefly debated killing everyone on our way out of the prison but decided to try and talk our way out gracefully first. We jumped into a party beguile with each of us taking a different angle on why the Doctor should let us leave with Brightmeer. Our persuasiveness (intimidation?) was punctuated by particularly strong opening and closing arguments from Eva and Katya (both 40+ Beguiles). The Doctor was helpless against such awesome beguile-power and gladly escorted us out of the prison with Brightmeer in tow. As we drove off in our Nazi motorcade we noticed an official vehicle on its way to visit the Prison. Roq did her best to hide Brightmeer. As they passed, Katya snuck a quick look at the people in the car and noticed an 11-year old girl riding amongst military guards. Interestingly, she was not dressed as a prisoner. Instead, she was well dressed and confidently sitting amongst the guards. We would find out later that she was actually Baria's daughter and regularly visited the prison to torture Giacomo, another prisoner, who would become a person of interest to us later in the day. After a brief stop to change disguises, we returned to our 'zone 2' rooms with the Baron. We wanted to debrief him right away but it was obvious that he was a total wreck. He was badly sleep-deprived, under the influence of narcotics, and poisoned. It took a few blocks but with some doctoring by Roq, Cure Ailments from Lilyana, psychological counseling from Eva, and a good night's rest he was ready to talk by block three of the following day. Meanwhile, while Brightmeer recovered, we decided to contact Babba Yagga. We had questions about how to proceed and with an obvious showdown coming against the Nazis in Moscow we could really use her help. Mei Linn opened up a Portal to zone 3 where we thought we had a better chance of performing the ritual without detection. Aside from some mildly embarassing 'survival' checks involving a dead rat and bloody guts in a failed attempt to improve 'ritualistic ambience', the ritual went off without a hitch. When Mei Linn completed the ritual an aspect of Babba Yagga coalesced in front of our very eyes! Babba Yagga had much to tell us and helpfully answered our questions. Here are the highlights: *Yog Soggoth is the German 'Alien World-Board Player' who is involved in occupying Moscow *The Moscow ritual location ("Ritual of 7 Rituals") is in a church (note: this logger cannot remember the name) within the Kremlin. **We must perform the ritual on the main altar and need a full uninterrupted block **The Ritual will reset the balance of the land back to Babba Yagga - she is weak right now since she's been cut-off from the land but completing the ritual will restore her power *She told us to seek allies in our mission *We asked for a prophecy to guide us and she obliged with this: **''Prick the vein of the city's lifeblood and ye shall find what you seek'' *She also said that she would reward us for liberating Moscow *As she faded away she blessed us with a 'Cleansing Benny' to be used in our efforts to cleans Yog Soggoth from Moscow. This benny persists until used. After Babba Yagga left, we decided to work through the last block of the night and then entered the next day sleep deprived (or double-deprived in Roq's case). Katya took Babba Yagga's advice to find allies to heart and organized a party expedition into the city to find the Resistance. We ended up at a bar called the "Dark Star". It was a University bar where 'bad-ass university students' were known to hang out. Some loose-lipped students helpfully informed us that Giacomo, an Italian, had been boasting of his Resistance contacts but had disappeared recently. They also mentioned he was the apprentice of Rapheal Ignanno, a Constructor Mage contact of Katya's, who operated out of the Patriarch's Palace last we saw him. They also mentioned two sisters who had been seen with Giacomo. There names were Marina and Marida Zukov. They were good at magic tricks and lived in a big compound on Greater Leader Lane (kittycorner to the Kremlin). We took all that we had learned back to the Inn where Brightmeer helped fill in some gaps like telling us that Giacomo was a prisoner with him in the Patriarch's Prison, who the girl we saw on the way out was, and that they had all of our Chapter 1 equipment stored in the prison. He also fleshed out some of the picture around Vasiley Zaitsev's activities since Stalin was defeated. Katya desperately wanted to believe he is acting against his will but the stories she's heard overwhelmingly suggest he is acting out of pure greed. We were faced with a choice: rescue Giacomo or risk passing through security to contact the Sisters in Zone 1. Ultimately, we decided to go after Giacomo (the fact that they also had our gear had nothing to do with it) so we set about planning the attack. We wondered if they had beefed up security since our last visit so we took a little field trip to scout things out while Roq worked on the communications in order to scramble their calls for help during the attack. Mei Linn scanned the prison magically but didnt discover anything new. Eva's evaluation of the Surveillance Systems revealed that we couldn't approach the walls without some way to counter the level 9 sensors.. Katya evaluated the overall security and determined that there could be as much as 4x more guards on duty now. She also sussed out that the walls were AC: 50 RF: 12 which was relevant to later plans involving 'smashing in'. The rough plan we came up with involved scrambling communications to avoid alarms, smashing through the roof (the walls were too well sensored), and then 'cleansing' each floor until we had our gear back and freed the prisoners. Roq mentioned we should have a way to transport the prisoners which sounded better than releasing them onto the streets to be rounded up so we may want to secure that before the attack. That's where we called it. Rewards 11 Generic Points Katya 4 Combat Points and 1 Benny Category:Soviet